Legal withdrawal of funds from Upwork in the Russian Federation

Habré has already written quite a lot of articles on the topic, in particular:

• 2 articles on working with Upwork (formerly known as oDesk)
  • Legal withdrawal of money from oDesk in the Russian Federation dated January 11, 2013
  • Legal withdrawal of money from oDesk to p / c IP from September 4, 2012
• 4 articles about working with foreign customers
  • The practice of working "in white" with foreign customers from November 14, 2011
  • Subtleties when working with a foreign customer from November 10, 2011
  • Why ITshnik worth becoming Ipshnik and why you should not register an LLC from November 9, 2011
  • LLC and currency management of February 18, 2011
• 3 articles about non-obvious taxes
  • VAT and freelancers working with Upwork from April 8, 2017
  • Tax gopher - 2. "Tax on Google" and agency VAT from January 15, 2017
  • Tax gopher. Features of USN when working under contracts with Apple, Google and others dated July 16, 2015

In response to repeated requests to write an article in which:

• scattered in different articles of the particles will be collected into a single whole
• all kinds of contradictions will be eliminated
• all information will be relevant
• Wishes will be taken into account such as “can I with pictures? :) "

The following manual was born.

Why pay taxes at all?

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Repeated participation of the author in discussions of issues related to the correct payment of taxes shows that the majority of the population does not understand why they need to pay taxes, and do not want to do it, justifying themselves with many reasons, very reminiscent of the reasons why people do not want to join the army.



If you are in doubt whether you should pay taxes, I’ll give you several reasons why it is worth it.

1. Payment of taxes allows you not to sweat about the law on countering the legalization (laundering) of income. There is an article on transactions subject to mandatory control. If you make a banking transaction falling under this article, for example in Russia - more than 600,000 rubles , in Ukraine - more than 150,000 UAH , at best the tax will have a reason to ask you about the origin of the funds, at worst you will have to prove that you are not funding terrorism.
   
   
2. Tax evasion causes the habit of “not lightening”, which is directly contraindicated for an entrepreneur who, in order to increase income, it is desirable not just to shine everywhere, but ideally to be a gag in every barrel. Payment of taxes allows you to actively advertise your services, and because of this, earn more.
   
   
3. With a large profit, it is simply impossible to withdraw funds to the account of an individual without any questions from the tax or using Payoneer.
   
   
4. The more you start earning, the fairer the statement from social advertising becomes - paying taxes allows you to sleep much calmer. Stress is quite material, and chronic stress is rather destructive. An increased background of cortisol (stress hormone) in the blood is one of the factors that increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, which today are the most popular cause of death among men who are known to live 12 years less than women in the Russian Federation, primarily because of stress .
   
   
5. The ability of the tax to see attempts to hide from her incomes is rapidly and inexorably growing. In particular:
   
   
   • Data centers are being actively built and put into operation, allowing for a specific person to analyze transactions in all available banks
     
     
     
   • Since 2014, the United States merges data from the Russian tax ,
     In 2018 plums will move to a new level
     
     
     
   • At the same time , a system of accounting for citizens' expenses is launched , which will make it possible to identify inconsistencies between expenses and declared (and undeclared) incomes.
     
     

To obtain criminal punishment for illegal business activities, for 3 years of activity without a legal entity in a row, it is sufficient to extract large-scale income from this activity. Today it is 9,000,000 rubles ($ 160,714), i.e. about 250 000r ($ 4464) per month.

True, the procedure for initiating a criminal case requires a test purchase, drawing up a protocol with two witnesses and transferring this protocol to the court within a month. To turn it over with a freelancer working exclusively through Upwork is very problematic, and there are practically no precedents for bringing them to criminal liability. But the laws do not stand still, and the tax does not lose grip, which make jokes.



Speaking of taxes, it should be noted that two fundamentally different approaches to their payment can be distinguished.

1. Popular, which is to receive once a year from tax confirmation that all through and then to all interested persons (for example, credit organizations, or embassies of foreign countries issuing tourist visas) to show their legal status and receive from them any nishtyaki.
   
   
2. Unpopular, consisting in the desire to comply with the requirements of the legislation as far as possible. Choosing this path, you need to be prepared for the fact that you will have to face the resistance of the bulk of the people around you. Including, most likely, the tax inspectors themselves will not be happy about your enthusiasm.
   
   

Ok, I'm ready. Where to begin?

To begin, consider the popular approach to paying taxes.

1. The first thing to do is to register the PI (USN 6%). Special helpers from online accounting services, Elbe ( guide , assistant ) or from My Business ( guide , assistant ) can help in this. When I registered, each assistant had their own glitches and their own advantages; it makes sense to try both and see where it will go easier.
   
   
2. Then you should wait until you receive certificates of registration of the IP from the tax certificates, and select the online accounting service you will work with. If this is Elba (my choice), you should register in it and enter the details of the certificates there. If you prefer My Business, you had to register at the stage of using the assistant in the registration of the IP, it remains only to enter the details. Which service to choose is a matter of taste, each service has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, at the moment, Elba does not have support for normal work with the patent taxation system, and My Business does not have normal support for paying agent VAT.
   
   
3. Then you should choose a bank with which you will cooperate and open a current account in it. In detail, the question of choosing a bank at the time I was sorting on a toaster . In short, at that time I was able to find three banks focused on working with Upwork.
   
   
   • Alfa-Bank (according to reviews, screenshots are enough for it instead of acts) was stopped after reading the article as Sberbank of the Russian Federation blocked the indie project accounts .
     
     
   • In Modbank, I started to register, but I stopped it when faced with an approach that hardly resembled a customer-oriented one. Later reviews from other users of the toaster confirmed my concerns.
     
     
     
     
   • I still work with a point . Recently, a new interface with a simplified passage of currency control was put into operation. The incoming transaction is now confirmed by an act on the work performed by two clicks, without creating a currency certificate, instructions to write off funds and a letter to the currency control.
     
4. Then the details of your current account should be entered into the Elbe and Upwork. Elba will start:
   
   
   • monitor the movement of funds on the current account
   • based on these transactions, the taxes payable are automatically calculated
   • once a quarter to put in front of you the tasks you need to perform
   • once a year to offer to submit a declaration and print out a book on the accounting of incomes and expenses (hereinafter referred to as KUDIR), which itself will generate

In principle, this question can be closed and focus on work.

However, if an unpopular approach to paying taxes is closer to you, then ...

The party has just begun!

The default Elbe settings do not take into account the commissions Upwork receives from us. Elba (as well as the tax) simply does not see them, since they are paid by netting. If the entire amount paid by the client came to our bank account, and then we paid the Upwork commission from it, Elba (as well as the tax) would be able to calculate everything correctly.

The fact that the Upwork commission is paid in an “invisible” way does not legally free us from having to pay the taxes required by law from these commissions. Another question is that there is no body - no business, many entrepreneurs have worked with Upwork for 10 years, without taking these commissions into account in their taxes, and at the same time they successfully passed a cameral tax audit.

In order to understand that such an entrepreneur is underpaid, it is enough for the inspector to open the contract with Upwork and read it thoughtfully. They do not, apparently, because your pennies don’t need anyone to have a corrosive analysis of the contract, which allows to reveal violations, tax inspectors usually carry out on-site inspection, and in order for it to happen, the robots analyzing your activity should include you in risk group.

Of course, until the data on the debit of Upwork commissions somehow fall into the field of view of these robots, you will be listed in the database as white and fluffy. Imagine now that the tentacles of tax reach out so far, as difficult as to imagine that in the next 10 years they will not do this. And if you don’t do anything about it, for 10 years before the tax one will accumulate a sizeable debt in terms of several months of income from a freelancer.

Well, what about the law?

First, from January 1, 2017, freelancers who work on Upwork must pay VAT for the services they buy from Upwork (in fact, VAT must be paid by Upwork for the sale of services to residents of the Russian Federation, but so far it does not do this, unlike Uber , Amazon, Google, Apple, etc., this responsibility falls on those who buy these services). How to do this is described in the already mentioned article VAT and freelancers working with Upwork

Secondly, the simplified payment system 6% must be paid not from the amount that goes to your current account, but from the amount that goes to the Upwork account from our customers. And here begins Hardcore.



The work of a freelancer working with Upwork is controlled by three bodies.

• currency control of your bank
• currency control of the Russian financial supervision
• tax

The demands they impose are essentially contradictory.

Suppose you have 4 clients, with each of them you received $ 220 a week.
For a month you have accumulated $ 3520.
10% You gave Upwork and the remaining $ 200 * 4 * 4 = $ 3200 that you sent to the bank.
You spent $ 30 on Wire Transfer and $ 3170 came to the bank.

In order for you to have no questions of currency control, in the act of work performed there must be a sum that matches up to a cent so that it fell into a transit account, i.e. $ 3170

In order for you to have no questions from the tax, you should have more than one record of $ 3170 for this month in KUDIR, but 16 entries of $ 220 each (in rubles at the rate of the Central Bank on the day of receipt these $ 220) and confirm them with the same act - not work out.

Moreover, if the rate of the Central Bank rose during the time that the money was on Upwork, in KUDIR, you need not 16 records, but up to 32 (the equivalent of $ 220 in rubles at the rate of the Central Bank on the day of receipt from the client + what was welded to the day of transfer of dollars from the transit accounts for settlement).

Consider some solutions to this contradiction.

• You can limit the payment of VAT, get rid of underpayment under the simplified taxation system by switching to patent taxation, enjoy automatic generation of KUDIR and pay fines (up to 30,000 rubles) for gross violation of income accounting (in terms of systematic incorrect reflection of incoming funds). Probably, by the time the tax starts to fine you, it will be possible to generate the correct KUDIR automatically and the legislation will get rid of contradictions.
  
  
• You can write in the act of the work performed:
  
  
  • total earnings - $ 3520
  • escrow agent commission - $ 320
  • Wire Transfer Fee - $ 30
  • performer profit - $ 3170
  
  Upwork signs such acts, and foreign exchange control of many banks takes them. In Elba, the automatically created entry in revenues from $ 3,170 will need to be ticked “not taken into account in revenues”, and the entry from $ 3,520 will need to be created manually. In KUDiR in this case there will be not 16 or 32 records, but 1, and if there are no sharp jumps in the dollar rate, then the underpayment of tax will tend to zero. Truth dramatically increases the threat of attraction:
  
  
  1. According to the article incomplete receipt of foreign exchange earnings. Currency control can assume that the law requires the receipt on the account of all revenue, and does not allow the netting of funds. In a nightmare, this can entail horse fines of currency control, amounting to 75-100% of the proceeds.
     
     
  2. According to the article, a gross violation of the accounting of income (in terms of systematic incorrect reflection of incoming funds) - the penalty for which, as already stated, reaches 30,000 rubles.
     
• You can specify in the act of $ 3170 and use it only to confirm income exchange control, and to confirm tax income to use documents in any form (for example, create invoices with screenshots from Upwork). In a good mood, tax may accept such documents. If he does not accept, we will get a gross violation of the accounting of income (in the absence of primary documents) - a penalty for which amounts to 30,000 rubles. True, even if the tax documents are taken on the assumption that their production will take, for example, 30 minutes a week, and the cost of an hour of freelancer is $ 30, for 10 years the cost of producing such documents will be 0.5 * 52 * 10 * $ 30 = $ 7800 ( today it is 438,594 rubles).

The debate about how best to proceed, is conducted on the toaster so far.

UPD 2017-04-23:
The comments began to appear wishes to highlight the topic of offshore in the article. In this regard, I can not help but throw on the fan to quote my favorite preacher Andrei Tkachev, who perfectly formulated my attitude to the problem.



UPD 2019-02-21:
Recently, they are increasingly asking about CCV (online ticket office). In short, if you draw up income on the arrival of funds on a current account (and tax does not mind), then CCP is not needed, since the money comes from a legal entity. And if you make out income on receipt of funds for Upwork, then CCT is needed.